The research described in this thesis involved a series of comparisons between dyslexic boys and chronological- age- matched and IQ- matched non-dyslexic boys. In experiment 1 the subjects were required to recall the serial order of visually presented sequences of items that were either easy or diffi cult to name. The dyslexic subjects obtained lower scores only when the items were easy to name. In experiment 2 the subjects were required to recall the serial order of digit sequences after a specified time interval with and without articulatory suppression (AS). In the silent condition the serial order recall of non-dyslexic subjects was better than that of the dyslexic subjects but not in the AS
condition. In experiments 3a and 3b, respectively, name latency and serial order recall were assessed for digits, letters and pictures. Dyslexic subjects were both slower at naming and poorer at recalling serial order, with there being some intra
group correlation between these two measures. In experiment 3c picture name latency correlated with the age of picture name acquisition. In experiment 4 the subjects were required to learn auditorily presented CVC associates for nonsense-shape stimuli in a paired-associate learning (PAL) task and in experiment 5 they were required to learn visually presented nonsense-shape
associates. Subjects were also assessed on their pre- and post-learning serial recall for sequences of these shapes. In the PAL tasks dyslexic subjects produced more recall errors in experiment 4, but not in experiment 5. Analyses of the
errors in experiment 4 revealed that dyslexic subjects showed a greater tendency to use childlike phonological rules, to recall the wrong associate, and ranslocated phonemes between associates. The latter two measures correlated with post-learning serial order recall. A theory of developmental dyslexia was discussed which implicated an impoverished development of the phonetic system.